Progression
by wereblonde
Summary: A series of 10 drabbles based around the development of Renji and Rukia's relationship. It is a series of progressions that starts with a warm summer day and ends, he hopes, with them the same way that they used to be, young and innocent and struggling to


**Title:** Progression  
**Author:** **wereblonde**  
**Rating:** R.  
**Pairing:** Renji/Rukia  
**Genre:** Romance, angst, humor, I tried to mix everything in.  
**Disclaimer:** Yeah, I wish.  
**Summary:** Renji can map his love of Kuchiki Rukia from the very beginning to the continuing journey. It is a series of progressions that starts with a warm summer day and ends, he hopes, with them the same way that they used to be, young and innocent and struggling to survive.

**1**  
Word Count: 327

She likes to sit in apple trees. The trees hardly ever have fruit that isn't worm-eaten or massacred or already picked, but she claims that they are the best trees for climbing and that there are always branches that fit her perfectly.

Renji finds her in trees all the time and has to shout at her to get her attention. When the weather is nice, one of many interminable days in outer Rukongai, it's almost impossible to get her to come down; he's trying to get her down now. Renji stands at the base of the tree with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows making their normal angry slants downward.

"Come down! We need to get food sometime. I'm /starving/."

A browned apple whizzes past his ear. When he flinches to the side, he can hear Rukia's high-pitched giggling above him. She always acted above him. Fine. If that's the way it's going to be, he thinks, I'll go up there myself and drag her down.

But only because she's a valuable distraction in most of our schemes, and not because I have any vested interest in her for anything else, he reassures himself.

Renji clambers up to the low branch Rukia is straddling with very little effort; she obviously isn't expecting him because she looks at him wide-eyed. Their noses are inches apart and he is glaring. "Come. Down." He reiterates, forcing the words out so that they have to hit her in the face.

Rukia raises one eyebrow at him, makes a _tsk_ing noise in the back of her throat, and is suddenly kissing his cheek. The hollow of his cheek, just above his jawbone, and he can feel the warmth of her lips and the blush that is creeping up his neck.

Renji loses his hold and falls out of the tree and all he can hear as he stares up at the sky from his back is Rukia's tittering giggle.

**2**  
Word Count: 289

Renji has spent nights up alone while she sleeps nearby. He can't sleep himself for the thought of her. He curses his hormones for their sheer _inconvenience_. 

Tonight he decides that he'll go for a walk and find another way to get the excess energy out of his system. He leaves the alley that they are using as shelter and ventures into the empty streets; this section of Rukongai is generally more dangerous at night, but Renji's gotten taller and his shoulders have gotten wider and he can take care of himself. He wanders the few blocks in silence and contemplation, his bare feet not making a sound on the dirt streets.

As he's getting near to the entrance to their alleyway, he sees dark figures scuffling off to the right under a stretched, tattered awning. He recognizes one of them right away. When he walks up silently behind the man—the very _drunk_ man—who is harassing Rukia and punches him out, she gives him a flat stare and says, "I could have taken care of it myself."

"I know," Renji says. "But you would have fucked him up real bad."

"He deserved it," She says, making that pouty-face and crossing her arms under her breasts—he's noticed that she's got those now—and all Renji wants to do is to take her face in his hands and kiss her.

So he does, trusting the dark to hide her reaction and hoping that he doesn't receive her fury in place of the drunk man who is now unconscious on the ground beside them.

He doesn't. Her face is hot under his hands and her mouth is already partly open; he takes without permission but she gives without complaint.

**3**  
Word Count: 400

Months of stolen kisses and making lame excuses to separate from the rest of the group to go "run errands" or "get food for the rest of you" leaves Renji a new man entirely. His step has a little bounce to it. He boasts—though he's vague about it, at her request. He thinks of her more than ever now that she'll make sounds into his mouth when he does certain things with his tongue.

"We'll be back in twenty minutes," He'd told them one morning when the clouds threatened and the crowds were thin, his stomach doing flip-flops both at the prospect of that much time alone with Rukia as well as the hopeful looks on their faces. "Meanwhile, you should try as hard as you can, too, in case we run into bad luck." That's the way it always happened: they split up to find food.

Rukia gave him one of her looks as they walked down the dirt street moments after; her hands locked behind her back. It was a Look, capital L, with the quirked eyebrows and the pouty little mouth and at that moment Renji's hate for her was almost as strong as his lust, simply because she knew all the right buttons to push.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" He says, irritated, looking away.

"You know why," She says slyly. It is then that the sky decides to open and the warm rain cascades down, soaking them both to the bone in the seconds it takes to find shelter beneath a tin lean-to normally used as a fruit stand.

He's wringing out the edge of his threadbare robe when her small—but firm—grip forces his hands away from his robe and his robe away from the rest of his body. "What—"

"Shut up," She hisses, looking him in the eye again. Renji tries to fight back the blush that he can feel creeping up his neck as he's attacked by a sudden wave of self-consciousness—_she's never seen him naked, has she seen anyone naked? is he right? is it too small? what if, what if, what if—_

When she takes him in her hands and broke eye contact to lower her head, that self-satisfied smirk still on her face, Renji decides that it is time to stop asking questions and just tangles a hand in her wet hair.

**4**  
Word Count: 297

Renji would remember for countless lifetimes after the first time that they ever really fought. Rukia was proud of her ability to throw down with the boys, of her budding abilities and of the spiritual power that surpassed everybody around her. Renji, naturally, was jealous.

"What did you say?" Rukia screeches indignantly that one impossible afternoon as the sun bakes the mud to a crisp and the boys lounge around in the last shady spots available to them. Renji crosses his arms tightly over his chest and renews his glare, challenging, spitting his words out to the ground at her feet.

"You heard me! All you're doing here is taking advantage of us, of our hard work, when you hardly ever pull your own weight around here—"

"Who got you food last night?"

"Hardly!"

"How was that 'hardly'? There was nothing 'hardly' about it!"

"She has got a point, Renji—" One of the others tries to chip in, but Renji shuts him up with a threatening fist.

"Don't even act like you don't take advantage of the fact that you're a woman in this place," He says nastily. "I've seen you disappear and come back with your arms full of goodies, and how did those get there? How many people did you service to get that?" His arms wave wide and his hands make rude gestures in the dry air.

Rukia looks at him, her mouth a straight line and her eyes cold. "Take that back." She says, quietly, much quieter than anything she'd said before.

"You heard what I said!" He shouts, taking a step forward to assert his Alpha Male integrity.

Rukia looks at him, turns, and walks away—and he swears to himself in that moment that he'll never forget those eyes.

**5**  
Word Count: 249

In the morning, the last of their circle of friends gave away to the hunger and the danger of outer Rukongai and became another mound of dirt on that hill.

"I want to feel something other than this emptiness, Renji," She tells him that afternoon as the rain beats down against the tin roof of the shelter they'd chosen. He sits with his legs folded over one another, robe stretching over his knees to preserve his modesty and his arms tucked tight against his side because he is sulking. He is sulking, and he is doing it his own way until she inches up beside him and presses against his side, her head fitting comfortably on his shoulder.

"I don't want to--" He feels the wet warmth of her tears falling on his neck, down his chest. He is silent.

"I want to feel something other than this," She says again, her large eyes looking up into his with an intensity he's never seen before. "It's either that, or I go to that place and put my hand in the fire." 

Wordlessly, he takes her in his arms and takes off her clothes. His hands are shaking. She takes off his clothes.

Hers aren't.

"Rukia," He says quietly, his breath lingering on the last syllable of her name as they crash in an awkward collision of hips and mouths and fingers through hair that matches the urgency in the angry staccato of the rain on the tin roof.

**6**  
Word Count: 290

They decided that they would become Shinigami, but now that he's here, Renji can hardly remember why. Sure, he finally gets to excel at something, and prove to other people that he's got something to offer, but all of the stiff-necked rules are almost not worth it. He hates jumping through hoops. The only thing that keeps him going is the thought that they are doing it together.

He remembers the days when they were both new, and he hadn't met Kira or Momo, and he didn't have anybody else to turn to: days when she wasn't so distant, when he could still make her laugh. _They seem long gone now,_ he thinks as he proceeds slowly down the hall towards the room where he'll learn his fate. _I hardly even see her anymore._

When he found out that he had graduated to the next level, the first thing that he wanted to do was tell Rukia. _Finally,_ he thinks. _Something to be happy about. Something that we can share, something that we can smile—_He dodges around people who give him dirty looks, but he doesn't care because they don't matter. None of them matter nearly so much as a single smile from her matters.

When he bursts into the room, all thoughts of happily-ever-after and Rukia's doting affection disappear. The Captain of the Sixth Division looks up at him with that penetrating icy stare and Renji stops short, his words dying in his throat.

The moments pass like years and the Captain brushes past with his entourage in slow motion. When Rukia turns to look at him, Renji sees the expression on her face and he swears that he can hear his heart breaking in the deathly silence.

**7**  
Word Count: 213

The jealousy eats away at him until he'll do anything to make it stop, or slow, or disappear—even for the shortest while. While years ago graduating had seemed like the pinnacle, the greatest thing that he could have accomplished, now Renji is not satisfied with anything. He pushes himself constantly, faster, harder, better, _better_.

The fuel of this newfound fire walks past him now, not sparing him a glance, with enough pompous air that you'd expect him to be trailing cherry blossoms and sticks newly fallen out of his ass. Renji is just about to do the customary—make a face after the Captain has passed, renew his vow to surpass the man—when Byakuya stops in place and pivots without losing a bit of that manly grace.

"Abarai," the man says softly—he says everything softly, as if he didn't care for any of it—making Renji stop in place and turn around to pay the respects that are expected of him. "You will receive a summons in five minutes' time. You've been moved to the Sixth Squad, as the Vice Captain. I expect you in our quarters and ready to meet with me in ten minutes."

Renji had to suppress his grin. You'll never know what hit you, you bastard.

**8**  
Word Count: 478

Renji had felt it when he went to the material world with Byakuya. For a long time he'd had room for nothing but jealousy, but when he saw Rukia there, with that mortal orange-headed asshat and that gigai of hers, he felt the stirrings of his mischievous youth and his desire to be by her side. He'd heard the verdict and he'd disagreed, though silently, with the punishment; the full extent never hit him until he saw her there in the jail cell, in the plain white robe with the shadows under her eyes and the resolve in her posture that he knew so well. That resolve told him that she was convinced of her rightness just as much as he was.

He could still hear Hanatarou's whimpering from the closet. He'll be okay, he tells himself. Had to be done. He fits the key in the lock and enters the cell, being sure to close the door behind him.

"I wasn't sure you'd come," Rukia said, breaking the silence with the dry tone she'd learned from her adoptive older brother.

"Of course I was coming," Renji shoots right back as the cell door clicks into place. She twists around in her seat to look at him, and for the first time in years Renji sees the Rukia that he used to know looking at him. She is all mischief and wanting, resigned to her fate but wanting to raise hell before she goes. He sighs. "You know it had to be done," He grimaces. "But they have to let you off. They have to."

She gives him that little half-smile, and Renji can't hold himself back anymore. It takes all of his effort not to knock her off the chair completely as he surges forward to kiss her little mouth, to cup her little head in his hands and taste her like the first sweet fruit of the season.

She pulls away for only a moment, both to loosen the rope that holds her robe tight around her waist and to ask him, with some amount of trepidation, "Are you sure?"

"Kuchiki-san," He says admonishingly, using her adoptive brother's surname for the first time, well, ever. "I have never been more sure of anything in my life." He smooths his hand over her shoulder and her robe falls to the floor. He discards his own flowery monstrosity and lifts her so her back is propped against the back wall of the prison cell and his face can rest contentedly against her neck while she writhes against him, biting her lip to keep from calling out his name.

Neither of them knows whether it is that he is sure about or whether it is the commuting of her sentence, but Hanatarou is sitting in the closet and he's starting to think that it's gotten awfully quiet out there.

**9**  
Word Count: 327

Renji finally had the balls, after being beaten nearly to death by the ryoka Kurosaki, to stand up for Rukia. How her sentence kept being moved up and up he didn't know, but he did know that it was injustice, and that the system his Captain put his heart and soul into was corrupt. His jealousy of Byakuya, while still very much a reality, became second to the intense and overwhelming need to play the hero, rescue his damsel, and make things right again.

The only problem is that Renji's never filled that role very well. He doesn't look the part, with his tattoos and his long hair, and he doesn't act it with his foul mouth and bad attitude. His abilities weren't up to par if he could be defeated by a mere Ryoka and his bankai was a joke. Aizen could crush me with his little finger, He realizes fully as he hunches over Rukia and stares at the man as Zabimaru repositions for attack. He could crush me like a fucking ant.

Despite all his best efforts, he fails again, and the fires of his shame swell up and engulf him when Kurosaki shows up blasting soul energy like a fucking furnace. A self-satisfied smirk is plastered permanently on the orange-headed Shinigami's face and Renji feels like he would do anything in the world to wipe it off, but he also knows somewhere, deep down in his gut, that Ichigo is the only one who can do anything for Rukia.

It is at that point that he finally surrenders and gives the game up to Kurosaki Ichigo for the handling. But I'll get back, He thinks, struggling to get away from that hill while Kurosaki stays behind to fight. I'll get back at him and I'll be stronger than before. Kuchiki Byakuya. Kurosaki Ichigo. None of you can take her away from me. His inner twelve-year-old stomps a foot petulantly. I found her first.

**10**  
Word Count: 151

Renji can map his love of Kuchiki Rukia from the very beginning to the continuing journey. It is a series of progressions that starts with a warm summer day and ends, he hopes, with them the same way that they used to be, young and innocent and struggling to survive. He keeps track of every twist in the road and of every obstacle. Even as they pile up, he knows that there will come a day when he will be able to face all of them.

He thinks of this now, as they are waiting for the dam to break. Aizen's Arrancar are preparing for it just as much as they are, but he couldn't really care less at the moment; he's taking his break, and watching her train, and he thinks that there is nothing in the world that is sexier than a woman holding a sword. Especially that woman.

**THE END.**


End file.
